Stern, D., Finkelstein, N., Stone, J. R., III, Latting, J., & Dornsife, C. (1994). Research on School-to-Work Programs in the United States (MDS-771). Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California.

STRATEGIC CHOICES

Encouraged by federal legislation, localities and states are building new school-to-work systems. Their purpose is to prepare young people more effectively for their immediate or eventual careers by creating more coherent and visible pathways from high school to work. Along these pathways, young people are to be given more and better opportunities for learning in the workplace itself.

This report has reviewed the U.S. research pertaining to these efforts. Because full-fledged school-to-work systems do not yet exist in this country, the research has dealt with separate school-to-work programs and program models. These programs and models are of two kinds: school-and-work arrangements which permit students to participate in both kinds of activity during the same time period and school-for-work programs which provide instruction with the express purpose of preparing students for work. Cooperative education and new youth apprenticeships are major examples of school-and-work programs. School-for-work programs include secondary and postsecondary vocational education--both traditional versions and recent models such as Tech Prep and career academies.

What can local and state decisionmakers learn from the research that may inform the strategic decisions they face in designing new school-to-work systems? Probably the most fundamental decision is whether the new system will be designed only for the "non-college-bound" or whether it will be more inclusive (see Bailey & Merritt, 1993; Berryman, 1992). This choice has a direct bearing on what kind of school-based instruction and what kind of work-based learning should be offered. These questions drive the following summary of the main findings from this report.

The issue of which students to include in school-to-work programs is linked to the historical debate about vocational education in this country. Since 1917, federally funded vocational education has prepared students only for occupations requiring other than a baccalaureate or advanced degree. The evidence reviewed in this report confirms that high school vocational students are, in fact, less likely to go to college. Compared to other high school students who also do not attend college, vocational students on average earn higher wages--but only if they find jobs related to their training, which most do not. Similar results have been found for students who participate in cooperative education (co-op). At the high school level co-op has mainly been part of vocational education. There is ample evidence that co-op succeeds in linking work-based and school-based learning in students' minds. However, the evidence does not indicate that co-op generally leads to higher earnings after high school unless students continue working with their co-op employer. Co-op students' economic prospects are also diminished by the fact that they are less likely to attend college compared to other high school graduates.

In recent years, the financial return to a four-year college degree reached an all-time high. Four-year college graduates earn substantially larger salaries than graduates of two-year colleges, who earn more than those with no postsecondary education. Limiting new school-to-work systems only to non-college-bound students thus limits the possible future earnings of participants in the new systems. In effect, such a decision would reproduce in the new system one of the defining characteristics of traditional vocational education.

Beyond the direct negative effect on students' possible future earnings, excluding college-bound students would also detract from the image of the new school-to-work system itself. Because a four-year college degree is now, more than ever, a ticket to the highest-paying jobs, the more ambitious students in high school tend to choose college-prep programs. In 1992, the proportion of high school graduates aiming for a four-year college degree reached an all-time high. A parent explained, "We've got two very clear tracks right now--college prep and `nowhere' prep" (JFF, 1993b, p. 11). If new school-to-work pathways are identified with the non-college-bound or with the non-baccalaureate-bound, it will be difficult for them to avoid being identified as "nowhere prep." Research on implementation of the Tech Prep model has already found that a major barrier is the failure of four-year colleges and universities to award credit for Tech Prep courses in two-year colleges (Table 26).

Even in Germany, whose "dual system" is often considered a model to be emulated by new school-to-work structures in the U.S., the growing demand for higher education is requiring the system to provide easier access from apprenticeship to university. In the early 1990s, the number of students in higher education for the first time surpassed the number of apprentices in Germany. Steedman (1993) observes,

A relatively new phenomenon is now being noted, namely, the difficulty being experienced even by the most prestigious engineering firms in recruiting trainees of the necessary high ability and aptitude. Respected commentators . . . have, as a result, diagnosed a crisis of the whole training system arguing that if the high-cost high-quality training provision of the prestigious industrial companies is discontinued in favor of recruitment from higher education, then the credibility of the system as a whole will be undermined. (p. 1288)

To prevent students' demand for university education from undermining the dual system, "The social partners [business and labor] share the view that the transition to higher education institutions and universities should also be ensured or at least made easier for graduates of the dual system," according to a senior official in the agency that oversees that system (Laur-Ernst, 1992, p. 40).

School-to-work programs and systems can be designed so that the four-year college option is clearly left open. Some career academies have demonstrated that this is possible even when they have taken a large proportion of students who are identified in ninth grade as being at risk of not completing high school. Career academies and some career magnet schools illustrate that high school students who are not clearly college-bound can be well- served by programs that do not limit their enrollment to this "forgotten half" only.

There are also practical reasons for students who do go to college to participate in a school-to-work program while in high school: While working their way through college, as most students now do, those who have had some practical vocational and work-based instruction while in high school may be able to earn higher hourly pay and therefore potentially have more time available for study. Later on, their early practical training may also make them more effective in their eventual professions.

Keeping the option open does not mean that all or most students will actually go to a four-year college or university. School-to-work systems certainly must include large numbers of students who do not enroll in a baccalaureate program as soon as they finish high school. But keeping the option open avoids trying to sort students ahead of time, limiting students' future career prospects, and stigmatizing the new school-to-work system.

The main disadvantage of trying to keep the baccalaureate option open is that teachers may find it more difficult to accommodate a heterogeneous group of students, especially if they have not done so in the past. In addition, employers may balk at the idea of offering training slots to students who subsequently do not come to work in the industry. These are some of the concerns that local and state authorities will encounter as they decide how inclusive to make the new school-to-work systems.

Within the schools, major decisions must be made about the curriculum of school-to-work programs. New career majors or career pathways could consist of a set of existing courses that students may elect to follow in a logical sequence. Or they could be whole new schools-within-schools, with groups of students and teachers who stay together for a year or more and curricula that build interdisciplinary linkages around particular career themes such as computers or health occupations. Career academies, Tech Prep, new youth apprenticeship, and career magnet programs have developed integrated, interdisciplinary curricula of this kind. The 1990 Perkins Amendments require that federal funds for vocational education now be spent only on programs that integrate vocational and academic education, and this is consistent with the new federal school-to-work legislation. However, high schools, and even two-year colleges, are not mainly concerned with vocational education. Building integrated school-to-work programs for large numbers of students will require the active collaboration of non-vocational teachers and departments. Administrators and counselors will have to help with scheduling, guidance, and all the myriad details involved in launching a new effort. The strategic question for high schools and two-year colleges is whether to make this kind of commitment, or take the easy way out.

Keeping the four-year college option open adds to the challenge of building an integrated curriculum. Four-year colleges and universities require applicants to take certain prerequisite courses, earn good grades, and perform well on admission tests. In order for students to meet these requirements, school-to-work programs must cover the necessary bases. Again, career academies and career magnet schools have shown that it is possible to provide a career-related curriculum that prepares students either for full-time work or for four-year college, but these are not simple programs.

In addition to school-based instruction, school-to-work systems are to give new emphasis to work-based learning. The main strategic question here is whether work-based learning will be designed primarily to prepare students for immediate employment or to develop general cognitive abilities. These are not contradictory purposes, but they do have different implications for the use of students' time. Preparation for immediate employment implies learning the specific skills and routines necessary to do a particular job for a particular employer. Cooperative education in high schools has had some success in accomplishing this purpose, but there is evidence that co-op results in higher earnings for students only if they stay with their co-op employer. There seems to be a problem with the portability of skills and knowledge from one employer to another. Development of new skill standards for occupations and industries--an important component of new school-to-work systems--may solve this problem.

However, there is still a question of whether students' time in workplaces should be spent mainly learning how to do the work or whether students should also be using the workplace as a setting to learn other things. They can be given independent learning assignments related to their academic courses: for instance, how math is used in quality control. More generally, they can be given problem-solving assignments individually or in groups that require them to use what they know from various academic courses, to obtain other relevant information, and to bring it all to bear on a practical matter. This kind of exercise can help develop students' thinking abilities and can also be useful to employers.

The question of emphasis on learning to do the work versus learning to think is related to the issue of students' probable futures. Programs only for the non-college-bound will presumably emphasize preparation for immediate employment. If they are geared to "high-performance workplaces," they will also emphasize the development of thinking. Programs that keep open the four-year college option will aim to prepare students for immediate employment and develop their thinking abilities but will also put more emphasis on the application of academic learning.

Although the research reviewed in this report is fairly voluminous, the questions are complex, and there are few definitive answers. Even when programs have been found to be effective, it is usually not possible to say exactly why they are effective because the programs themselves are multifaceted. Furthermore, each program model--youth apprenticeship, Tech Prep, co-op, career academy, or community college vocational education, for example--has been implemented differently in different places. This will continue to be true unless program standards are enacted and enforced, which seems unlikely. Program standards, however, may not be necessary or desirable if occupational and academic skill standards are put in place, as called for by Goals 2000. Implementation of skill standards will involve measuring what students know and can do, both in school and at work. Students' performance is what matters most. If new school-to-work programs can improve students' performance, public authorities need not worry about whether certain program components are included.

Finally, it is useful to recall that school-to-work transition seldom means an abrupt transition from full-time schooling to full-time employment. The initial transition from school to work usually occurs over a period of several years, during which work is combined with school. A successful school-to-work transition system will use this initial transition period to help young people find and keep the kind of full-time job they want, with a minimum of wasted time. But it will also do more than that. A successful system will enable young people to master the process of learning while they work. In a fast-changing economy, this is fundamental.

Stern, D., Finkelstein, N., Stone, J. R., III, Latting, J., & Dornsife, C. (1994). Research on School-to-Work Programs in the United States (MDS-771). Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California.